Unspeakable
by TheSummerNightingale
Summary: Luke didn't always love Annabeth. But this is how he came to view her as a friend to a sister to something more. "Moments" set in the first PJ series, so SPOILERS from all the books in that series. Very Canon to the books.
1. Chapter 1

******Oh gods (aha see what I did there… okay yea not funny), I've just finished reading The House of Hades in the Heroes of Olympus series and ah, I can't even explain. Too good. It's too amazingly good!  
**

** Anyway, I was planning to do this while reading The Demigod Diaries and I got reminded of Lukabeth, which is so tragically beautiful. But I'm a strict supporter of Percabeth too, so this fic just focuses on how Luke started falling for Annabeth :) **

**Enjoy! (I don't own the characters or even the general plot - just the specific inside stuff) **

* * *

**Set in The Lightning Thief **

"Don't be hasty. Actually think about it first." He's begging for her safety, but he doesn't think she knows it.

"I have to go." Annabeth's face is set, determined, and her grey eyes are flashing indignantly. Luke has seen this expression on her face more than enough times to know that she won't relent, she won't back down.

But he has to try, or else she'll be killed along with Percy and Grover.

"Please," Luke says, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. "It's dangerous." She has no idea how dangerous.

But maybe Annabeth sees how worried he is for her, his little sister, because she calms down a little and says gently, "Yes, but I've been training for this for forever, Luke! It'll be fine, I promise!" She pauses and wrinkles her nose. "Well, except for the fact that I'll have to keep Percy_ and_ Grover on task."

Luke sighs. There's no point anymore. When a child of Athena sets her mind, it's not going to change. "I guess I can't dissuade you, can I?"

Annabeth's walls fall as she blushes and shakes her head. "No, you can't. But thanks for… you know. Caring."

He wants to say that that's what friends are for, except it feels so… wrong. He's betraying the camp already - he can't lie to his best friend, especially since she's probably going to die on this stupid quest.

He did it again. He referred to her as his best friend. It's unforgivable, it's a habit he has to stop.

"You should probably rest," Luke says stiffly.

"Rest? Oh, yeah. Rest." Annabeth sounds a little disappointed. Luke doesn't know why, because surely those twelve-year old eyes can't see what he's up to.

"Bye, Annabeth. In case I don't see you tomorrow, good luck."_ You'll need it._ Luke walks away, towards the Hermes cabin without looking back, but he still hears the faint whisper of her farewell.

* * *

It's right after the Iris message with Percy that Luke starts to doubt himself. Not Kronos's plan, no. The plan is flawless, and Percy Jackson and his friends are falling into the trap perfectly.

No, it's Annabeth.

Luke hadn't even known how much he'd missed her quirky personality until he had seen her standing there behind Percy. And just like that, he was reminded that Annabeth's a target, too.

For a moment, as he looks out into the meadow again, Luke wonders what Annabeth will think of him once she and the rest of camp finds out. He wonders how much she'll hate him when he kills Percy. He wonders if she'll unexpectedly pop out of a trashcan again to kill_ him_, except this time with a real knife and better skills.

Annabeth. Thalia. The good old days. The days when Luke had realized how cruel the gods on Olympus are.

Luke shakes his head to clear his thoughts. No more thinking about Annabeth or Thalia.

They were his family once, but even families break off sometimes.

* * *

**Set in** **The Sea of Monsters**

When Jackson, his Cyclops brother, and Annabeth escape the _Princess Andromeda_, Luke feels rather angry. He shouts at the servants at his disposal, he curses his father a hundred times, and he comes very close to killing the blasted drakon himself.

But it's not just because they bested him. It's because he's relieved she got away, which is why he is angry. He shouldn't be feeling like that.

And Annabeth, she had the _nerve_ to say Thalia would never be on Luke and Kronos's side! Luke knows Thalia would be on his side. Thalia was like him. She would understand.

Annabeth, on the other hand, doesn't, because she has that ignorant Jackson by her side. If only Annabeth could see that Luke was trying to create a place where demigods didn't have to suffer anymore.

Luke remembers Annabeth's seven-year old face, as she told him and Thalia that her family hated her. He remembers how angry and disappointed she was, because of the gods.

_Gods, Annabeth. Can't you see what I see?_

(In the end, it's Annabeth that makes him see what she sees.)

* * *

Luke stands by the rail, waiting. Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Tyson. They will be coming soon.

He is not worried about strength. Jackson is easy enough to deal with. The satyr and Cyclops? Not a problem.

But there's still a sick feeling in his stomach, and it's not from the sea. It's because of her.

He can't forget her face, a sweet, innocent smile forming on her young face, as she walk in between him and Thalia, and he describes their future. Thalia holds Annabeth's hand on the other side, her face wistful and full of hope.

"Family."

Luke doesn't realize he says it out loud, until a sharp pain forces its way into his head.

He is back in the dark abyss that is Tartarus. Kronos's essence is in front of him, a cold, foreboding presence in the air.

_ You would do well not to think of them, son of Hermes. Perhaps I need to remind you which side the girl is fighting for?_

A series of images flash by, the last one of Hermes standing in the living room of Luke's mother's house. The warning is clear.

Kronos withdraws himself from Luke's mind, and Luke almost falls over the railing into the ocean below. He manages to catch himself before he does, and leaps back onto his feet on deck.

In a way, he is thankful that Kronos has interfered with his thoughts. At least now, he can go into battle without feeling guilty about Annabeth.

* * *

**Set in ****The Titan's Curse**

Luke's back hurts.

Carrying the sky is much harder than it seems, and he'd only done it for a while. Until he tricked Annabeth into saving him.

It's strange. Luke knew that Annabeth would come to save him, no matter what he'd done to her the past two years. He knew Annabeth would not hesitate to take the weight of the sky from him. The idea seems foreign to him, but Kronos had once told him that Annabeth was in love with him.

And now, as a result of her love, the pain he had barely endured is on her delicate shoulders.

He hopes Artemis will come soon, because, like he had with Annabeth, Luke knows Artemis will not fail to take the burden from Annabeth. Artemis better not fail, because if she doesn't, Annabeth will surely die.

But she may die anyway, won't she? There's a chance she might, because Kronos doesn't know. Kronos doesn't know that Luke…

He stops his thoughts right there. No need to ponder the unspeakable.

(He should have known that thoughts don't work that way.)

* * *

With a small tray of food in hand, Luke walks towards Annabeth's prison, dismissing the dracaenae as he passes. They hiss at him, but even they can appreciate a good break from work.

He spots her curly blonde hair before anything, and it's a punch in the gut. Her grey eyes are the next thing he sees, and it's a stab in his heart.

She's worn down. She's tired. She's also glaring at him with so much hatred that Luke has to avert his eyes.

"What do you want?" Annabeth says as fiercely as she can, but Luke can tell that she's still exhausted, both mentally and physically.

Luke can't say anything. He doesn't trust himself to. Instead, he slips the tray into her cell, and motions towards it. He watches her eyes linger on the food with longing, but her pride wins and she turns back to him. He knows she'll eat it later, when there's no one around. But that's all that counts.

"Percy's coming for me," Annabeth says, but she sounds uncertain.

Luke can't resist himself any longer. "Yes, Jackson's coming. But it's no use, because he and you will die anyway." For some strange reason, it hurts to say that.

Annabeth attempts to stand up, but her legs almost immediately fall beneath her. She settles for sitting cross-legged on the floor, and takes a while before she asks, "Why are you doing this for me, Luke?"

Luke panics. "Doing what?"

She gestures to the food, then to herself. "Keeping me alive, when Kronos wanted me dead."

_ Shoot._ Luke hoped she was completely knocked out at that time, but apparently not. He tries to shrug and seem nonchalant as he replies, "He tends to kill people who still have use to us."

Her face contorts, and for a brief moment, there is pure pain on her face, but it is quickly masked with boiling anger. "So that's all I am to you? Bait? Knowledge? That's why you kept me alive?" She takes a deep breath, and her grey eyes become all the more piercing. "_That's_ why you kept me alive all those years ago?"

Luke's breath catches in his throat. She's so ignorantly far from the truth that he doesn't care how harsh he sounds when he spits out, "That was then. This is now." He turns away and stalks from her prison, until he's cut short by a yell that wrenches his soul out.

"I HATE YOU!"

Luke turns back to the prison in shock, where fourteen-year old Annabeth stares at him, her eyes livid despite the fatigue in her bones. There are tears slowly making their way down her face as she repeats herself, no louder than a whisper: "I hate you."

Luke turns away again, holding back himself. He can't stand it any longer. He knows if he spends even another minute here, he will break down and do something stupid like hug her. He tries his best to sound boastful and superior. "I'm sorry, Annabeth. If you and Thalia just saw some sense… well, this could be avoided."

And he walks away, because she can't know that she's starting to get to him.

* * *

Right before he falls over the cliff, Luke looks into Thalia's face.

His former best friend is exactly how she looked before, from her clothes to the determined expression on her face. Except the eyes she reserves for the "monsters" are fixed right on his face.

There's pain in them too. As they were fighting, she had whispered to him with her movements: "_Why?"._

But Luke knew it was because she doesn't realize what he's doing for the world. Just like how Annabeth doesn't.

Annabeth. Annabeth!

His eyes reach behind Thalia to where Annabeth stands, one of her hands extending out to him, the other covering her mouth in shock. She's next to Percy, and seems to be alright, except for the fact that there's pure terror woven into her sweet features.

He thinks she might be screaming on his behalf, but before he can really make out anything, he's plummeting fifty feet to the ground.

His last thought before the rock meets his head is that at least Annabeth is okay.

* * *

** Yay for Lukabeth - I know it's more friendship right now, but I'm trying to keep it very, very Canon, as you can probably see. **

**It's probably just going to have one more chapter, combining moments from the Battle of the Labryinth and The Last Olympian. But I don't know, it might extend to two :D**

** Reviews, anyone..? :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Firstly, thanks for the reviews and support! It means a lot to me!**

**Second/final chapter :) Hope you enjoy! **

**(Disclaimer: I did my best not to actually talk about the things that happened in the actual books, because some of my moments happened in them. So yeah, I take no claim to the events of this story - just Luke's thoughts, really)**

* * *

**Set in The Battle of the Labyrinth**

"Please," Luke says, and there is true desperation in his voice. "We could go right now, and get away from all of it."

Annabeth's guarded look never hurt him more. "No, Luke. How am I supposed to know if I should believe you or not?"

They're standing on two sides of the door - Annabeth within the "safety" of her house, and Luke outside on the porch. Two sides of the door. Olympus and Kronos.

"You have to," Luke pleads. "I can't tell you why. But…the time's coming soon, and I don't have much time left."

"I can't." Annabeth is shaking her head, trying to block him out. "I have a duty to keep to Camp Half-Blood. To Percy. Unlike you, I'm not a traitor." Her grey eyes flash dangerously.

Funnily enough, it's not the last line that makes Luke frustrated; it's the part about Percy.

"Percy has a lot of people following him," he says with bitterness. "You don't need to be one of them."

Annabeth flares up. "Did you come here to try to bring me to Kronos's side? Because if you did, I _swear_, you don't know me at all!"

Luke shakes his head. "No! Annabeth, that's not what I meant. I told you. I want you to run away with me."

She glares at him suspiciously, and it breaks his heart. Somehow, this girl seems to be doing that lately. "I don't believe you." But there's a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

He hangs onto that uncertainty. "Look, I know I've betrayed you and Thalia. I'm sorry. Please believe me when I say that I want to run away. Family. Remember?"

Annabeth's eyes glance down to the Celestial bronze dagger hanging by her side. When she looks back up at him, her face is expressionless, but he notices that her hands are gently caressing the blade. "Family," Annabeth repeats softly. "You know, Luke, Thalia and I weren't the ones who broke that promise. You did."

She shakes her head, and her words become steely and guarded again. "I don't believe you. Go away, and don't come back." Annabeth swiftly turns away, and, as a daughter of Athena wisely would, slams the door in Luke's face and doesn't look back.

Luke wants to call her back, and plead with her - he wants to scream her name, tell her what's going on, and keep begging her to go with him. But he knows she won't turn back.

So instead, he slumps down to the wood floor of the porch, holding onto the railing above him, and whispers to the stupid door, "I'm sorry, Annabeth."

(He notices he doesn't say the Unspeakable. Maybe it's because he can't, but maybe it's because he's scared.)

* * *

Luke is drifting. He thinks he's about to drown, and he's okay with that, because he's not quite sure he has the strength to stay alive.

Except, what did that man - Achilles - say? Oh. That he had to think of something to keep him strung to shore.

Luke's eyes are already closed, but he squeezes them shut even more. There's nothing to think about, other than Kronos and how he wants to take over his body. What else? Think about that god of a father? He'd rather die than have that traitor be his lifeline.

Luke attempts a wry grin. It's kind of hard, because the flowing River Styx is pretty much killing him by the second. But he finds it funny that he really can't think of anything worth living for.

Somehow, he can't find his situation serious. In fact, Luke knows that if the pain wasn't so shockingly real, if the river wasn't deteriorating his body, he'd be outright laughing. It would be real, too. The laughing would be real, just like when he was with-

A picture of Thalia and Annabeth explodes into his mind, temporarily blocking the pain. Luke violently tries to shake his head - he doesn't want their involvement in this, he doesn't want them to see this happen to him. He tries to lift his fingers to his head to make the image disappear.

But, for one, he physically can't move his fingers. And besides that, the image only brightens and becomes clearer.

He sees Thalia beckoning him to shore, Aegis held like a raft in front of her. She's shouting to him, and he thinks it's words of encouragement (he can't hear her), because she's smiling.

And Annabeth. She's smiling, too. Her smile is sweet and lovely, and her blonde curls stand out in the darkness of the Underworld. Seeing her in comparison to Hades's realm makes his heart hurt - how can something so innocent and beautiful be somewhere so dark? But the strangest thing about Annabeth is that he can hear her.

"Come on, Luke!" she says, grinning ear to ear just as she had back then. "I know you can do it. Just keep thinking."

Luke tries to tell her that it's hopeless, but he can't speak. Even so, Annabeth shakes her head like she knows what he's thinking.

"Keep thinking about us, Luke!"

She's holding something in her hands, and it takes Luke a while to see that it's a string, and that it's connected to his underarm.

Luke knows a sign when he sees one, and so he lets Annabeth and Thalia pull him to shore. He lets Thalia lift him up out of the water on Aegis, and he lets them place him gently onto the rocky ground. He allows Thalia to stroke his hair, and he welcomes Annabeth to hold his hand soothingly.

But when he comes to reality, he doesn't allow them to leave, even though they were never there in the first place.

* * *

Luke sits in the stands, watching Antaeus and the stupid centaur fight, when that Percy Jackson walks in.

He hates Percy Jackson and his blind arrogance.

But Luke realizes just how much he hates Percy Jackson when he sees Annabeth screaming at him, _dracaenae_ holding her back. He's stunned to see her, of course. He's stunned to realize that he's happy to see her.

And then, before Luke can even process Annabeth's presence, that Percy Jackson battles Ethan Nakamura, and spares his life. And then Jackson goes on to defeat Antaeus and escape, taking Luke's everything with him.

"Stop." His voice is deadly silent as he addresses the room of babbling monsters. They all shut up, naturally. "I want each and every one of you _out_!"

He wants to scream, but he thinks he might start falling apart if he does - oh, wait. He forgot. With the power of the River Styx, there's practically no way he can fall apart.

The disgusting beasts are out of the arena in less than ten seconds. Luke is left in the vast room by himself.

He should feel angry. Livid. He should feel like killing everything around him.

Instead, he feels pain. Agony. He feels like his heart has been ripped out of his chest.

That Percy Jackson. Working under the gods' favor, working and manipulating people to work with him. And if that weren't enough, working and manipulating _Annabeth._

"Why?" Luke murmurs to the sand in the room. "Why would you risk your life like that, for _him_?" He spits out the last word with venom. He glances down at his hands, and says, even more quietly, "Why for him and not me?"

He kicks up sand from the ground, and clenches his fists. He has to get a grip on himself. Every time he thinks of Annabeth, it's one more chance that Kronos will see what his biggest weakness is (other than his Achilles' heel).

_Annabeth_, he thinks to himself sadly, _if only we were on the same side._

* * *

**Set in The ****Last Olympian**

Luke isn't Luke anymore. When he moves, it's not really him moving. And when he thinks, it's not his thoughts. It's Kronos's.

Kronos laughs. That Percy Jackson. Fighting bravely and pathetically on the Williamsburg Bridge. Kronos was obviously in power, and yet the boy had the nerve to destroy some of his army.

Except… Kronos isn't sure that he's completely in power. When he saw Ethan Nakamura (a fairly worthless half-blood) nearly stab Jackson, but stabbed the girl saving Jackson instead… something in his conscious wasn't his. He wasn't in complete control.

Kronos knows it was the boy - the Luke Castellan, his body host. But it wasn't until that moment where Kronos knew that the Castellan boy had a weakness he wisely did not reveal beforehand.

Kronos lets out an condescending laugh. Strange, how love works, and yet even his soldiers fall to it.

It's pathetic. It allows weakness.

* * *

Luke is himself, and he's dying. He knows he's himself, because he's just stabbed himself bloody. He knows he's dying because he can't feel a thing, even though he's just stabbed his Achilles' heel.

He's slipping out of consciousness, but he knows he needs to focus. He needs to tell her.

Annabeth. She just saved the world, and she just saved his soul. She's limping to him now, even though she's hurt. Because of him. She's hurt because of him.

She reaches him and takes his bloody hand. He wants to apologize, but he knows he can't waste his words.

Her eyes are filling up with tears, as she shakes her head. Her body heat is warm and comforting. Even though she's covered in grime and blood, Luke is sure she's the most beautiful person on earth and Olympus combined.

He tells her stuff about family, about him, about her. She nods, and then, he knows it's time.

The words are already forming on his lips, but he swipes them away. He can't. So instead, he asks a different question, and when she and Percy Jackson exchange a long look, Luke knows it's hopeless. He wishes he'd seen what a miracle he'd had right in front of him when he'd had the chance to. But it's too late now. His soul might have been saved by the girl he loves, but his heart was crushed by her, too.

Luke turns from her. He can't look at her angelic face anymore. He can't look at her tears, which are for his mistakes. He can't see the pain etched onto her face.

Luke finishes his talk with Percy Jackson, and he knows he's going to die, and suddenly, he's abnormally panicked, and he looks into Annabeth's eyes, and he's about to say it, he swears he's about to say it, and his mouth is trying to form the words-

And then he dies, so Annabeth doesn't know and will never know that he wanted to say the Unspeakable.

("I love you, Annabeth Chase.")

* * *

**I'd love any kind of feedback from y'all, about this :) Thank you!**


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